Review #31: Broken Hearts, Fences, and Other Things to Mend by Katie Finn

Book: Broken Hearts, Fences and Other Things to Mend by Katie FinnDescription: Book #1 in YA contemporary trilogyPublishing Information: Published on May 13, 2014 by Feiwel & FriendsPages: 342First Sentence: The Wednesday afternoon that it all started, I was thinking about how great my life was going.GoodreadsAmazonBarnes and NobleIndieBound

(taken from Goodreads)

Hot sun. Blue waves. New romances. Old secrets.
Gemma had her summer all planned out, but it takes a sharp turn when she gets dumped and finds herself back in the Hamptons after a five-year absence.
Being there puts her at risk of bumping into Hallie, her former best friends (that is, before Gemma ruined her life). But people don’t hold grudges forever. Do they?
Gemma intends on making amends, but a small case of mistaken identity causes the people she knew years ago—including Hallie and her dreamy brother, Josh—to believe she’s someone else. As though the summer wasn’t complicated enough already.
Filled with summer sun, boys, and friendships gone sour, Katie Finn’s first novel in the Broken Hearts and Revenge series sizzles and delights.

Cover Review: This is the edition of the book I have, and I don’t particularly like this cover. However, they just did a cover change which is really cute, but also prevents me from having a matching set of the series. *loud sigh*I didn’t know what to expect going into this book. I mean, I feel like I say that for every book (so maybe I’m just horrifically clueless), but I really didn’t.
Morgan Matson is one of my favorite contemporary authors, so I knew that since I was caught up on all of her published books I should probably start picking up some of her Katie Finn works. (Surprise! Katie Finn is Morgan Matson) I had heard that they weren’t as good, but I was expecting that. It’s pretty hard to top contemporaries like Amy and Roger’s and Second Chance Summer.
So, this definitely wasn’t my favorite contemporary I’ve ever read. I had the “big reveal” at the end of the book figured out within the first hundred pages, and the main characters made such poor decisions that sometimes I had to put the book down because they were stressing me out so much.But – and I’ve said it before – I read books for entertainment. And this book was so entertaining. It kind of reminded me of when you’re watching horrible reality television or when you see an accident on the side of the road and you want to look away but you just can’t.
I read this book in one sitting. There really isn’t a way not to – it’s so fast paced and you just want to know how everything will work out. So many things go wrong and hardly any go right… if there’s anything you take away from this book (or even just this review): don’t lie. It will provide you with enough disasters to fill up a 342 page book.
For the most part, as far as characters go, I liked them. The main character was a little crazy, what with all of her disasters and heartbreaks and clinginess, but it wasn’t frustrating to read from her perspective. If anything, I thought it was funny – after I figured out what was going to happen – to see how oblivious she was to everything.
So yes, the book was pretty predictable, at least in my opinion, but it didn’t make me like it any less. If anything, it added to the excitement – knowing that something disastrous was about to happen any second and not know when. Also, I don’t think that everyone would be able to guess the ending for this one. I mainly just had a suspicion and once I did I found things to confirm it around every corner.
The ending frustrated me a little bit. I knew that this book had sequels but I hadn’t realized how necessary it would be the read the sequels or how much I would want to read the sequel immediately after I finished this one. The book also changed tones incredibly fast. That ending was the definition of 0 to 100 real quick.

Overall, I think this one was worth the read. It kept me entertained for an entire car ride and was good enough for me to immediately buy the sequel on BookOutlet after finishing it. It kind of read as more of a tween book than young adult, but I still enjoyed it. The third book isn’t even out yet, and you never know how Katie Finn’s writing and characters will improve throughout these three books.
Rating: 3.5/5 stars